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One signpost only

09 Monday Apr 2012

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Friday 6th April 2012 ko 4.45pm

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

LIVERSEDGE 0

ARNOLD TOWN 1 (Burton 43)

Att 317

Entry & Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £3

The village of Liversedge lies between Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike in the Spen Valley near Bradford. In 1812 it was the scene of a Luddite riot at Rawfolds Mill when the local weavers attacked Edmund Cartwright who was in the process of developing his new power loom. So dominated by its suroundings the village, that apparently there’s only one signpost directing you here. Continue reading →

Jurassic Park

02 Monday Apr 2012

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Saturday 31st March 2012 ko 2.30pm

Perry Street & District League Premier Division

LYME REGIS AFC 2 (Simier 52 Gosling 90)

ILMINSTER TOWN RESERVES 1 (Gilman 41)

Att 44 (h/c)

Entry by donation

No programme

125 years of LRFC brochure £2

Tea-in-a-mug 50p

It was a full 18 months since I’d last visited the Dorset town of Lyme Regis, and with me finally getting round to visiting friends Mike and Christine, in footballing terms the number one priority was a visit to the Davey Fort.

Lyme Regis is known primarily for one thing, palaeontology as the coast, a World Heritage site, stretches over a distance of 153 kilometres from Exmouth, in the west, to Old Harry Rocks in the east.The coastal exposures along the coastline provide a continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations spanning approximately 185 million years of the Earth’s history. The localities along the Jurassic Coast include a large range of important fossil zones. The Blue Lias rock is host to a multitude of remains from the early Jurassic period.  Many of the remains are well preserved, with complete specimens of several important species. Many of the earliest discoveries of dinosaur and other prehistoric reptile remains were made in this area  notably those discovered by Mary Anning (1799–1847).

The Davey Fort sits on the hill as you enter the town from the north. There’s a clubhouse with an overhang behind the near goal, and a rail on one side. There simply isn’t room for much else as the ground is on a ledge cut out of the hill, and despite the obvious attempts to widen it, the pitch is too narrow to allow the club to progress upwards into the Dorset Premier League.

And that’s the tragedy of the piece. Here is a wonderful, charming club, who’ve won the league at a canter, and are clearly a big fish in a small pond, but the biggest problem lies in finding a large enough piece of flat land, in a hilly town that’s fashionably expensive! I chatted to club stalwart Graham “Percy” Vere (529 goals in 20 years), who told me that the club had found a suitable site further north, only to be turned down by the local authorities, as ONE PERSON had complained that he might have been able to have seen a floodlight! And people wonder why this country has an obesity problem!

With Lyme having the title all wrapped up, this game had the incentive of the club maintaining its 100% home record for the season. They made a confident start but the visitors, one of whose subsitutes had no idea in which league his first eleven play(Somerset County League), soon found their feet. Ilminster surprised everyone, including themselves, by scoring just before half time, when a beautifully flighted free kick from the left was turned in by Louis Gilman.

Regis didn’t seem unduly worried and soon after the restart a perfectly flighted cross from the right was expertly headed home by subsitute Julian Simien. Its was one way traffic by now and only a series of baffling off-sides given by the Ilminster club linesman kept the champions out. It was, of course only a matter of time, and in the final minute a perfect cross-cum-shot from the right by Joel Gosling nestled in the corner of the net. When you’re this good, you need no other opportunity.

A great achievement, but tinged with the regret that through no fault of their own, they’ll be having no other challenge next season but to try to repeat the feat.

Eisteddfod

11 Sunday Mar 2012

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Friday 9th March 2012 ko 7.30pm

Ceredigion League Division One

LAMPETER TOWN 2 (Rivers 39 Coombes 90)

LLANYBYDDER 2 (McEnery 13 D Thomas 84)

Att 197

Entry & Programme by hop ticket

Badge £3

Cawl (Lamb stew) £3

For those of you who don’t know me, I should explain my involvement for the next 4 games. I’m Chris Berezai’s deputy at GroundhopUK and we’ve organised hops over England and Wales for many years. I also assist Kim Hedwall who organises the Swedish groundhop in June each year. The idea is to “Turbo-charge” groundhopping by staggering kick-offs so multiple games can be seen in a day. To attract the fans the clubs produce a programme, and lay on catering. In the case of the clubs on this hop, it turned a normal attendance of 20 , into 200 or so, producing a good payday for the clubs.

This hop was in fact a tidying up exercise to get visits to Aberaeron and UWA done. Both are Mid-Wales League sides, and we’ve done hops in that league on August Bank Holiday for the last 3 years, with another, the last this coming August. Trouble is neither of those two sides are able to play at that time, so an extra hop was needed. More pressingly Aberaeron will vacate their ground at the end of the season.

With 2 sides to visit, the day needed padding out. The original idea was to finish at Llanrhaedr, but when the visitors refused to a later kickoff we had real problems. We were fortunate that Dai Davies at the Ceredigion League (a feeder to the Mid-Wales League), grabbed at the idea, and after much to-ing and fro-ing, games were resheduled to give us a Friday night under lights at Lampeter and a late afternoon game at New Quay the next day. Accomodation was booked, Keith Regan at Castell Coaches (a legend and he knows it!) sorted us out a coach, and his expert driving services booked.

Friday turned out to be a very long day, albeit very rewarding. Fellow hoppers Craig and Lee met me in Oxford at 8am, and our first job was to head to Coleshill United for a ground inspection for September’s North Berkshire League hop (You’ll love the place!). Then it was over the Severn Bridge to meet Chris and his party at one of our old stamping grounds, Trefforest. Whilst the others enjoyed South Wales’ best real ale pub The Otley Arms, Chris and I drove to the western end of the the M4, Pont Abraham to meet journalist Chris Harte, who very kindly had collected the programmes for all 4 games. From there it was back along the M4 to another hopper Richard, who let us use his front room to put together 95 programme packs for those with prebooked tickets. From there it was back to Trefforest to pick up the others. From there just a short drive along the A470 to Caerphilly to Castell Coaches.

It’s always a pleasure to work with Keith and Castell, and he was in his usual ebullient form as he bypassed Friday afternoon traffic as we picked up 35 hoppers from Cardiff station, and headed north, via Merthyr Tydfil, to the west Wales town of Lampeter in double-quick time.

Make no mistake, you are in Welsh Wales here. On an extreme level, the Free Wales Army was founded here in 1963, by  William Julian Cayo-Evan. A paramilitary Welsh Nationalist organisation, it fizzled out in the 1970’s. On a far less extreme level, the town is a centre for the Welsh language and culture, and is the UK’s smallest university town, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David adding around 1,000 on to the normal population of around 3,000. On a personal level, I very nearly went to university here, before choosing the brighter lights of London.

If things had worked out differently I may have visited Maes Y Felin over 20 years earlier, its very much the junior partner of the rugby union club running parallel to it. The rugby pitch is railed off, and there’s a large club house behind one goal. The football club makes do with a changing room block, and a rope for the pitch. The floodlights were an unusual sight for this league but gave us our Friday night game.

An under 18 game was in progress on the rugby ground and I was pleased to see our game gettiung a larger attendance. The rugby crowd looked a little nonplussed a the high attendance the football was getting!

The club made the most of their opportunity with a gazebo being erected, and a barbeque on an old circular saw fired up. A pot of Welsh Cawl (lamb stew) provided sustainance for Keith and I, followed by some Barra Brith (malted loaf). Programme packs were distributed and we were royally entertained as Lampeter entertained Llanybydder hailing from a mere 12 miles away.

Oliver McEnery’s free kick was a spectacular opening to the game, but Mark Rivers’ reponse was a fitting reposte. The two sides slugged it out in a highly entertaining, end to end match, with Daniel Thomas thinking he’d won it for Llanybydder only for Josh Coombes to fire home for a deserved equaliser deep into injury time.

It was a marvelous start to this mini-hop and it was a happy coach party that arrived the Hotel Gwesty Marine in Aberystwyth around an hour later. With around 40 hoppers staying a poster in the hotel lift amused me. It read,  ” If the hotel bar is quiet we will be closing at 10.30pm.” They clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with, as we were still chatting and drinking at midnight! When you see some people so infrequently, you have to use every opportunity to catch up!

Many thanks for Craig Dabbs for the use of his photos

The Church of St Mary in the Hollow

12 Sunday Feb 2012

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Saturday 11th February 2012 ko 2.30pm

Welsh Alliance Division One

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH 3 (Thomas 2 19 R Owen 79)

GWALCHMAI 3 (Evans 6 Burgess 10 Allman 76)

Att 61 (h/c)

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £2.50

Coffee 70p

With the UK under a rather late big freeze it was very much a case of finding something, anything on. To make matters more pressing, Peter Grant was over from Japan and having made do with League football for a week, was looking for something more exotic! I wanted something a bit special as a means of saying thanks for putting me up for 2 weeks in the summer. Now here’s a groundhopping top tip, North Wales and Anglesey seldom freezes, so I decided to look at that part of the world. I thought it might also be fun to watch a Japanese based Australian try to pronounce some of the place names!

After collecting Chris Bedford from Stafford, the M6 made it impractical for us to get to our original choice of Pwllheli, so the choice was made to head for Anglesey, and the first village you reach once you’ve crossed the Britannia Bridge. Given the time we’d earned by driving less distance, we took time to visit the Marquess of Anglesey’s monument at the southern edge of the village. The 27 metres high monument offers excellent views of the Menai strait, the village, and the football team’s old ground Gor’s Field. From there we then visited the famous railway station, and the visitors’ centre for the inevitable tat, before heading up to Maes Eilian.

But let’s answer the three most obvious questions. Firstly why the ridiculously long name? In simple terms it’s a Victorian publicity stunt. In 1826 when Thomas Telford built the Menai suspension bridge then in 1850 the Britannia Bridge and the North Wales Coast Railway linked London to Anglesey and the ferry to Ireland, the villagers spotted an increase in local traffic. So as to get people to stop, a local committee was put together to try and encourage trains, travellers and 19th century tourists to stop at the village. It is believed that the name was elongated from the simple Llanfairpwll by a cobbler from Menai Bridge, little did he know that he had implemented one of the most successful tourist marketing plans of all time!

But what that is it mean? Deep breath now…..Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave. And how is it pronounced? Something like…Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-ilio-gogo-goch. Simple? For the vast majority of the time the name is abreviated to either Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll.

The football club moved from the flood prone Gor’s Field a couple of years ago. Maes Eilian is about 400 yards north up the hill. The name of the new ground translates as Eilian’s Field, a slightly jokey reference to the legend concerning a local saint renowned for performing last minute miracles. It hasn’t kept the club in the second tier of Welsh football, the Cymru Alliance, the reduction in size of the Welsh Premier League having forced the club down a level. The original plans for the ground included a full clubhouse and floodlights. With grant monies not forthcoming, the club scaled back to no lights and a group of portacabins which serve as changing rooms, and a committee room cum canteen. It does the job, just. A vast improvement though is the pitch and what’s around it. Gor’s Field, still in use by reserves and youth, featured little more than benches hidden under the changing rooms’ overhang. Now, there’s a proper seated stand, and a container case covered area behind the goal.

What hasn’t changed is the friendly nature of the club. The chairman went home to collect the entire stock of metal badges for Peter to buy as souvenirs for football fans back home, and most of the information here came from the officials who were always willing to come and tell us more about their club.

The game pitted Llanfair against their Anglesey neighbours of a full 7 miles away, Gwalchmai. The programme predicted a close encounter, that was spot on, but what we got was close to a classic. Aled Thomas thumped home to open the scoring but Gwalchmai quickly responded to equalise then take the lead, all within the first 10 minutes! Thomas then equalised with a fine 20 yard strike, the goal of the game, and Llanfair hit the woodwork twice before half time, the second when it looked a good deal easier to score!

Inevitably the second half slowed a little as a spectacle, although at no point could you predict a winner. Allman fired home to give the advantage to the visitors, but Llanfair rallied again for Richard Owen to respond almost immediately after. 3-3 was probably fair, although home keeper Liam Ewing had to produce a fine save at the death, tipping over the bar.

A little tip for those visiting this wonderful little club. Since the club cannot do much more catering than chocolate and hot drinks, if you want something hot to eat, try the Caffi Glan Menai opposite the station. The food’s rather good, and the cafe advertises in the football club’s programme.

Sentiment

04 Sunday Dec 2011

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Saturday 3rd December 2011 ko 10.30am

Midland Combination U21 League East/North Divison

LOUGHBOROUGH STUDENTS 6 (Poole 7 31 Ali 26 Howard 49 Jardine 66 77)

WOODBOURNE SPORTS 2 (Douglas 47 Carter 56)

Att 15 (h/c)

Played on the “Paddock Pitch” Loughborough University

Entry FREE

No programme

Coffee (from vending machine in nearby “Pilkington” Library) £1

Once I’d pencilled in Belper United for the afternoon’s fixture, doing something in the Midland Combination U21 League was an obvious choice. Even more obvious was to see where Woodbourne were playing as I’d seen them back in October and been mighty impressed (https://laurencereade.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/the-right-way/). I then looked at where, Loughborough University…oh. Around 10 years ago I ferried my ex-wife there each month for tutorials during her study for her phD. I also attended the viva and graduation ceremonies there. We split up a year ago, so there are some mixed memories of the place for me. To add to it all, this was her birthday, so on one level it was the last place I wanted to be, but I’m a groundhopper, and this is Woodbourne after all.

For those thinking of visiting its worth noting that you will need to report to reception, off Epinal way, and that the Campus is huge! The Paddock pitch is more or less straight ahead from the main entrance, and is to be found on the aptly named University Road, at the western end of the site. Its not the site that Loughborough University’s adult side will be using, when they leave Loughborough Dynamo in Nanpantan.

And to be frank there isn’t a lot lot here. Just a roped off pitch with the Cayley One changing rooms a fair walk downhill. I’d brought along Paul Fergusson for his first Midland Combination game of any description, and while I knew Woodbourne would do things the right way, the welcome they gave Paul and I was most touching, I didn’t know how they would bear up to what was, on paper, a far stronger team.

What we got was a highly entertaining game, played to a very high standard. Woodbourne brought just the 12 players, the manager making copius use of the overage rule to name himself on the bench! All the while students walked alomg University Road, tripping a speed display (mostly at 3 mph), but oblivious to the entertainment on offer.

The students took the lead with a quite appalling piece of referreeing. Will Poole blatantly handled before his attemped cross sneaked in. Imagine Henry vs Eire and you get my point. The second was more straightforward, Woodbourne keeper Jake Gibbons dropped the ball in front of Gabriel Ali who just tapped in. Woodbourne fought hard against tough odds and an even tougher set of officials and I thought were a little unlucky to find themselves 3-0 down at the break.

Sports pulled a goal back soon after the break through Seb Douglas, but this produced an almost instantanous response, Nick Howard heading powerfully home from a corner. Still Sports wouldn’t give up, still playing good, passing footbball, and were rewarded with an excellent finish from Tom “TC” Carter. You hoped for a unlikely comeback, but it wasn’t to be. Subsitute Rob Jardine scored twice, the second a dribble through most of the defence, to post a rather unfair scoreline on the visitors.

We had just enough time for Ryan Shemwell to be booked for a frustrated trip, to which his mother shouted ” He’s no son of mine!” Priceless, and typical of a club, who to crib my previous title do things “The Right Way.” I think they’ve made another fan in Paul.

Perspectives

01 Thursday Dec 2011

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Tuesday 29th November 2011 ko 7.45pm

Wessex League Premier Division

LAVERSTOCK & FORD 1 (Wykes 58)

WINCHESTER CITY 4 (Smeeton 54 Allen 74 81 Dunford 82)

Att c50

Entry £5

Programme £1

The small town of Laverstock lies on the River Bourne, a mile opposite the city of Salisbury. Although it predates it more famous neighbour, its clear that the city has completely dwarfed this rural settlement.

The Dell lies in Church Road, and reveals both the club’s ambitions and limitations. Its at one corner of a large area of common land, and as late as 2004 the club were playing in the Hampshire League, on a roped off pitch. The pitch has now been rotated through 90 degrees leaving a large net previously behind a goal rather redundant. A homeowner behind has hung bird-feeders on it! The club are rather proud of what they’ve done to the ground, with the lights, 100-plus seats, and hard standing on all 4 sides. The two quirky bits are the fact that the seats are via two prefabricated stands set across one corner, and the burger bar, built as a block with the dugouts at the half way line. Neither are ideal but still do their respective jobs. The club are pleased to have made it this far, and maintained their status. Continue reading →

Unpicked

27 Thursday Oct 2011

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Wednesday 26th October 2011 ko. 7.15pm

Portsmouth Senior Cup 2nd Round

LOCKS HEATH 0

MONEYFIELDS 5 (Brown 12 Gregory 40 64 66 Buttwell 83)

Att 42 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No programme

Tea 50p

A trip to Fareham to see a former Wessex League club who now play in the Hampshire Premier League, where lights are not needed. So, a slightly unnecessary cup game and and an early kick off to beat a curfew and, easy tickings!

So what’s there? Well there’s a clubhouse, and a seperate changing room block, but that belongs to the Sports and Social Club. That said, one window does give a pretty good view of the action when it rains. Which it did, and other than that window there is no cover. In fact what the football ground is, is simply a railed off pitch at one end of a cricket pitch in a pretty nondescript suburb. However there is one thing of note, and that’s the floodlights because they’re portable! Because of the cricket, the club can and do remove the lights out of season. I’ve not seen that before, although I do know of a club looking to install something similar.

The game was pretty much as the scoreline suggests and no, Wessex Premier Moneyfields didn’t put anything like a full first eleven out. They didn’t need to, as at no stage did Locks Heath look capable of mounting a serious challenge. And that dear reader is why the evening’s entertainment fell a little flat. There was nothing to inspire, although Lee West and former Wealdstone kitman Les Bull provided excellent company.

In the end we all got wet, the 3 of us collected a tick apiece but left feeling that we’d achieved nothing much more.